Living Green Expo 2011

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Featuring a captivating art exhibit, fabulous Green Wedding, and the all-new Electric Vehicle Experience.  Travel down the Complete Street in Action as you experience the best in green with over 300 exhibitors, workshops, demos, family activities, and more!

May 7-8, 2011  •  State Fairgrounds  •  livinggreenexpo.mn

The Living Green Expo: Celebrating a Decade of Positive Change and Progress

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul. Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. ~ John Muir

Feeling connected to nature is good for the soul. It’s the rosy flush of fresh air after a walk around the lake. It’s the calming snow-covered sounds of wildlife on a quiet winter morning. It’s kicking off your shoes on a sunny summer day and feeling the sand or grass between your toes.

We’re fortunate to live in a state where so many residents value that connection and work hard to protect the environment. Since 2001, when the first Living Green Expo drew 5,000 attendees to learn about sustainable lifestyle choices through exhibits, workshops, and vendors, the state of Minnesota:

•    Saw a rise in our collective environmental conscience—deeply entrenched in many of our lives, not only in our day-to-day actions but in how we view the world.

•    Passed a Complete Streets policy ensuring that transportation planners and engineers take into consideration the design of the entire roadway while keeping all users in mind—including pedestrians of all ages and abilities, bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and riders, and motorists.

•    Passed an aggressive energy bill to commit to reduce global warming through a renewable energy standard that requires utilities to get at least 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. That law was designed to reduce the state’s dependence on fossil fuels and increase the use of cleaner energy sources. The new bill also asks utilities to whittle down customers’ energy dependence by 1.5 percent per year. According to a report by MPR, the two measures are expected to have a dramatic effect on carbon dioxide pollution. 

•    Passed legislation mandating statewide e-waste recycling of certain electronics which otherwise leak toxins, including arsenic and lead, into the soil and water supply. According to the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, 65 percent of Americans are now affected by e-waste laws, which usually mandate that either the manufacturer provides recycling programs or prohibits what the consumer is allowed to throw out with the trash.

•    Passed the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment, adding three-eighths of a percent to the state sales tax to pay for a healthier environment. About a third of the money will go to cleaning up and protecting Minnesota’s lakes and rivers, another third will support projects to protect forests, prairies and wetlands for wildlife habitat, hunting, and fishing, and 14 percent will go to parks and trails.

•    Saw a rise in the popularity of alternative energy and energy-efficient vehicles. It is anticipated these energy sources will eventually provide at least part of the answer to our problems with oil and coal.

•    Helped rally major supermarkets and co-ops to make organic food available to consumers.

•    Supported the growth of buying local and in-season by shopping at farmer’s markets and community-supported agriculture (CSAs).

•    Saw a rise in the popularity of eco-friendly events and celebrations, such as weddings.

•    Built the first light rail transit line in the state, along the Hiawatha Avenue corridor, eventually connecting downtown Minneapolis, the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America.

•    Developed sustainable building guidelines set by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Program (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) to rate green building and construction practices in six areas: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and design. According to best-selling author Thomas L. Friedman, “Green technology is going to be the industry of the 21st century.” This includes green design, green building,
and green manufacturing.

•    Saw the rise of commingled collection and recycling rates, including steel recycling, which reached a record high
of 83.3 percent in 2008.

•    Watched the Living Green Expo grow from 5,000 attendees in 2001 to 25,000 towards the end of the decade, and the smooth transition of the event first being coordinated by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, then rescued from near budget cut-cancellation in 2010 by the statewide nonprofit coalition of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, who continue to produce the event today.  

In a world with a population of nearly 7 billion people, each individual action in the right direction can add up to an enormous effect. Just think about what we can accomplish together in the next decade.  

What to See and Do at the Living Green Expo

The Living Green Expo has something for everyone, including more than 300 exhibits, workshops, demonstrations, family activities and much more. New highlights include:

•    A local couple’s green wedding (Saturday, May 7 at 11 a.m.) Demonstrating how a wedding or milestone celebration can be green. The Green Wedding will begin with a contest, conducted by KSTP-TV’s Twin Cities Live, in which a couple will be selected as the recipients of a green wedding package that includes the whole scope of planning—from the invitations to the honeymoon.

•    Annual Friends School Plant Sale: It’s easy to cultivate your green thumb with our new partnership. Purchase plants and bring them home with you.

•    Our Amazing Earth: An interactive art inspiration inspires preservation of the earth and its elements.

•    Growing a Green Family: We introduce kids to sustainable living by making garden hats, recycled Mother’s Day gifts, and through story time. Kids are encouraged to show off their crafts during the Eco Parade (Saturday, May 7 at 1 p.m.)

•    Complete Streets in Action: In collaboration with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, Transit for Livable Communities, Alliance for Sustainability, Metro Transit, and Fresh Energy, we demonstrate how roads can be made safer and more accessible for everyone. Bring your bike or walking shoes!

•    Don’t miss the Electric Vehicle Experience featuring the Tesla Roadster and the Fisker Karma.

Daily entertainment will take place on the outdoor stage. Nearly everything at the Expo is recycled or reused, making it the largest zero-waste event in the state. The following topics will be covered at the Expo through a variety of hourly workshops, exhibitor booths, and special demonstrations:

•    How to protect your family and your home: Experts show that it’s easy to make environmentally-friendly choices in the home while limiting household toxins. Topics include finding safer, healthier and reusable sources for greeting cards and stationery, clothing, cosmetics, eco-art, candles, shopping and plastic bags, cleaning services and cleaners, diapers, and green gifts and products.

•    How to “grow” a green family: The new creative activities area teaches the next generation about sustainable living through a variety of storytellers, poets, and entertainers, and the creation of recycled Mother’s Day gifts.

•    How to best enjoy healthy and local foods: The food area features local restaurants with local chefs demonstrating recipes using local, seasonal foods. Exhibits provide an array of delicious, healthy options, and workshops and demos cover popular topics like eating on a budget and canning and preserving fresh foods. Attendees can learn more about Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), meet local emu farmers, and learn about natural sunflower oil and healthy, local food choices for pets.

•    Ways to drive less/drive smart: In addition to providing free transportation with Metro Transit Go Greener passes, the Expo provides the latest in green and cost-saving transportation options and shrinking carbon footprints, whether on foot, bike, bus, or car. Exhibitors and workshops include new green car options, car shares, the electric car show, and resources for alternative means of getting around.

•    How to create sustainable gardens and backyards: Workshops, experts, and backyard displays showcase the greening of lawns, including information on native plants, organic lawn care, rain gardens, composting, rain barrels, water management, and sustainable pavers and gardening. Whether attendees live in a condo balcony or own a multi-acre lot, they’ll find something for their outdoor space.

•    Ways to save energy and money: Learn more about solar power, radiant floor heating, geothermal, and insulation techniques.

•    Ways to build or remodel green: Today’s homeowners are looking at ways to remodel or “green their homes”—creating long-term savings for both their pocketbooks and the earth. Exhibits focus on green design, construction, remodeling and interior housework, including geothermal heating and cooling systems, roofing options, energy efficient windows and green building materials.

•    Ways to protect and enjoy the Great Outdoors: Explore ways to help restore and preserve our state’s natural resources, including recycling home water, restoring natural lands, and examining how climate change affects wildlife and eco-tourism options.

Admission is free (with voluntary nonprofit donation of $2). Secure bike storage is available. Metro Transit provides shuttle services at the Expo and free transportation to and from the Expo with the Go Greener Pass. Chinook Books will be given to the first 200 visitors each day.

To learn more about the Living Green Expo, visit www.livinggreenexpo.mn, “like” Living Green Expo on www.facebook.com or follow the event on twitter (@livinggreenexpo).

The Green Wedding Scene

A wedding should be a unique reflection of a couple’s love as well as their beliefs. If those beliefs include an eco-conscious lifestyle, a green wedding can be fun, rewarding, and dramatically less wasteful than the average wedding.

According to Kate Harrison, author of The Green Bride Guide, the average wedding produces 4-600 pounds of garbage and 63 tons of carbon dioxide—multiply that by 2.2 million weddings each year and you start to understand the magnitude of the problem.

In an effort to show others that you can continue to live green even on your wedding day—without sacrificing beauty or breaking the bank—Expo organizers partnered with KSTP’s 3 p.m. weekday show Twin Cities Live and a group of local wedding vendors to give one lucky couple the green wedding of their dreams, valued at $27,000. Couples submitted their green love stories to Twin Cities Live in mid-March and the winning couple will be announced on-air in early April. The wedding will take place on Saturday, May 7 during the Expo in an outdoor area across the street from the State Fair’s Fine Arts Building. Up to 100 of the couple’s closest friends and family will be seated in a designated area separate from the area where Expo attendees can gather to watch the ceremony.

Vendors were carefully selected to ensure they are committed to sustainable business practices. “A repurposed wedding gown, local/organic caterer, electric getaway car with solar panels on the roof, organic flowers, and more” will be part of the big day, explains Tammy Truong, Expo coordinator. “We want to give examples and get people to start thinking about how they can make changes in their overall lifestyles that don’t make a huge dent in their pocketbook or their everyday lives, but make a big impact on how we treat the earth,” she explains.
 

Tips on how to plan a green wedding

There are many different aspects to planning your wedding. Make every planning decision eco-friendly, or incorporate just a few of the following. Every environmentally responsible choice helps.

•    Consider an outdoor wedding venue in a natural spot.

•    Have the ceremony and reception in one location, cutting down on drive time between the two.

•    Consider buying a vintage gown, purchasing your dress from a consignment shop, or buying an organic silk or hemp gown. *Already married? Learn how you can donate your wedding gown for charity at idofoundation.org.

•    Buy invitations that are on recycled paper or made from sustainable fibers and materials such as banana stalks, bamboo, corn husks, organic cotton, or sugarcane.

•    Use a reply postcard and skip the inner envelopes (you’ll save on paper and money).

•    Choose a caterer who will provide vegetarian, organic, and seasonal entrees.

•    Make sure the venue offers recycling facilities, and ideally composting, too.

•    Rent real dinnerware, glassware, and cloth napkins to avoid using disposables. If you must use disposables, look for biodegradable utensils and dishes made from cornstarch, potatoes, or wheat.

•    Find a florist that uses organic flowers.

•    Think about registering for a honeymoon or having guests donate to your favorite charity rather than a traditional gift registry.

•    If you’re buying gifts for your wedding party, consider options like gift certificates, wine, chocolate, or tickets to plays, concerts, or museums.

•    Plan your honeymoon to a local destination rather than an island getaway and save on emissions from flights.

The Green Wedding is made possible by the generosity of the following:

New Areas Show Connection between the Arts and the Environment

Living Green Art Exhibit

Their messages reflect social change; their philosophy is sustainability. The 17-20 different artists selected to participate in the Living Green Expo green art exhibit, “Art As A Gateway for Community Engagement: Sustaining Nature and Culture,” will feature works spanning painting, sculpture, drawings, mix/multimedia, performance, and installation.

The goal of the exhibit, says the exhibit’s curator, Roslye Ultan of Hamline University and the University of Minnesota Departments of Art, is to promote an awareness through environmental artistic expression.

“Through the arts the senses, emotions, consciousness of the viewer/participant is touched in an immediate way,” she explains. “Environmental responsibility should be of concern to all citizens, and artists can pull this together in a single form to express what scientific documents attempt to illustrate.”

Installed in the Fine Arts Building during the Expo, the exhibit will provide a catalog with photos and descriptions of the artwork for all attendees. Spectators will see some traditional works, and some that are more experimental and exploratory—works that will challenge the way we view our relationship with art and the broader issues in the community and the world at large.

“The artist is an active agent participating in all aspects of the social network from the beauty of nature to grasping the way things work to the planting of a tree,” Ultan comments. “It is my role as a cultural arts curator to search for artists and bring their work before the public in an organized exhibition that serves to inform and enhance understanding of issues related to the environment and sustainability and promote a possible move to action.”

Make sure to put the Art Exhibit on your Expo “must see” list! Showcasing an artistic connection between the arts and the environment, it gives us inspiration and hope as we continue to live greener and more sustainable lives.
 

Creative Activities

Some day our kids will inherit the earth, and now—more than ever before—there are unprecedented opportunities to renew our future. A variety of arts and educational activities in the Expo’s Creative Activities Building are a great way to get kids involved and teach them to love their Mother Earth, providing the perfect platform to educate, motivate, and demonstrate.

With the help of ArtStart, an award-winning nonprofit organization dedicated to providing quality arts education, children at the Living Green Expo can learn about the environment through a multi-sensory experience titled “Our Amazing Earth,” fun hands-on activities, watching performing artists and cultural groups, and by creating masks, head pieces, and sound sources with artful reuse kits, available in advance of the Expo at ArtStarts ArtScraps, 1459 St. Clair Ave., St. Paul throughout the months of March and April. Those who pick up the reuse kits in advance are encouraged to participate in a parade during the Expo. Instructions and ideas for creating the kits using things found in the home will also be available for download through www.livegreentwincities.com in March and April.

According to Carol Sirrine, ArtStart executive director, the goal of the “Our Amazing Earth” experience is to “illuminate the connections among people, ideas, and the environment through the arts, and inspire actions that sustain and preserve those natural resources.”

Since its inception, ArtStart has initiated a number of innovative programs and projects that focus on the link between the arts and the environment, including the ArtScraps Creative Materials Reuse Store, where businesses, manufacturers, corporations, and individuals donate scraps and materials. The nonprofit will be bringing some of these materials to the Expo for a “Make and Take” hands-on activities area.

ArtStart artists will help guide children in a project using garden hats and photo frames made from recycled, natural, and found objects. (Just in time for Mother’s Day.)

“The arts are a powerful tool in learning to look, to see, and finally to perceive the invisible,” Sirrine says. “The arts—like the natural world—share a fragility and a power. For children and adults to experience that dynamic brings meaning to life and a kind of reverence for all living things.”

Teaching kids about sustainability will better prepare them for the choices they will make in the future, and help them learn that every action they take can impact others.

In addition to having a presence at the Expo, ArtStart will feature a monthly series of projects on the Living Green Expo website that utilize materials found around the house. For more information, visit www.livinggreenexpo.mn.

Electric Cars on the Cusp of Going Mainstream

The concept of plugging in a car—at one point in time—probably seemed as far-fetched as Fred Flintstone powering his prehistoric Flintmobile with his own two feet or George Jetson zipping around Orbit City in a flying space car. But many people say electric vehicles (EVs) are on the cusp of going mainstream, evident by major car manufacturers recently breaking into the market. Nissan closed its pre-order waiting list at 20,000 names, and General Motors is trying to boost production from 25,000 EVs in 2011 to 120,000 in 2012. Both Nissan and GM could be delivering a lot more vehicles if they could only produce them faster.

“Electric vehicles are a great new option for many people,” says automotive engineer Jukka Kukkonen, who has followed the developments in electric vehicle market for years and started last year providing EV consulting through his own company PlugInConnect. He is also president of the Minnesota Electric Auto Association and a member of the Drive Electric Minnesota Coalition.

“They consume much less energy and will help us break our dependence on foreign oil.”

Electric vehicles not only offer benefits in terms of our national security, they are better for the environment. Over their lifetime, electric vehicles emit less carbon and greenhouse gas emissions than conventional vehicles, and will continue to improve as coal-generated electricity is replaced by solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources.

EVs are also convenient—the owner of an EV doesn’t have to find a gas station and stand in the freezing cold pumping gas, instead they go home at night, plug in their vehicle, and it’s ready to go the next morning—and that will help save money on gas.

Another bonus, Kukkonen says, is how quiet EVs are. And the machines are not only silent, they’re extremely fun to drive.

Attendees at the Living Green Expo will have an opportunity that no one else in the state of Minnesota has had up to this point: they will be able to not only see electric cars and actual charging stations (there will even be a functioning solar charging system)—they will have a chance to receive test rides in many EVs and Plug-in Hybrids from major car manufacturers such as the Ford Transit Connect, Tesla Roadster (below) and several conversion vehicles.

Today’s forward-thinking EVs are as sturdy and reliable as their gas-powered counterparts, and with incentives and rebates, the price may be well within reach of many consumers. Some of the new vehicles, when fully charged, can travel up to 50 miles; others can travel up to 100 on one charge, and more and more cities are talking about creating electric vehicle parking spaces for added convenience.

It will be a slow transition weaning drivers off gas-powered cars—there are still kinks to iron out regarding price, range, and battery technology—but the promise is there and it’s exciting.

“People will love these vehicles when they get a chance to experience them,” Kukkonen says.

For more information, visit http://pluginconnect.com/resources.aspx.

Why Consider Electric Cars?

Here are some reasons to consider the switch to electric vehicles:

Freedom

With EVs we aren’t tied to one energy source, so we have the flexibility to choose how we produce the energy for our transportation. We can drastically reduce our dependency on oil and move toward more renewable energy sources. Owning an EV even allows you the option of producing your own transportation energy directly from the sun by adding solar panels to the roof of your home.
 

Efficiency

Even the best internal combustion engine (ICE) does a poor job in turning the energy from the gasoline into propulsion power. On average, 20 percent goes to propulsion and about 80 percent is thrown away as heat waste. Electric motors are just the opposite. They turn 80 percent of the battery’s energy to propulsion power, while only 20 percent goes to heat waste. So EVs consume much less energy than traditional ICE-powered cars.
 

Simplicity

ICEs are very complex machines, and in most cases they are coupled with automatic transmissions that are even more complicated. Together, they consist of hundreds of moving parts. A modern AC electric motor has just one moving part, a rotor, and the motor is coupled with a simple reduction gear. This simplicity means cheaper production costs in mass manufacturing, and the whole power train is practically maintenance free.
 

EVs work for most people’s daily driving needs

The capability of batteries to carry energy is still limited, but the technology is developing fast. Present technologies limit the range of sensibly-priced family sedans to less than 100 miles/charge. This means that EVs are not yet ready to take you on interstate trips, but they are still well-suited for the daily driving needs of most people, since according to a U.S. Bureau of Transportation study, 78 percent of people drive fewer than 40 miles per day on average. For longer trips, people could rent a car, use public transportation or, in two-car households, they could use their second car, a traditional ICE powered vehicle.
 

Low emissions

Even though electric cars don’t emit any exhaust gas, electricity production does cause emissions. The amount of these emissions depends on how big of a portion is produced by coal-fired power plants. Still, even if the electricity were exclusively produced by coal, the exhaust emissions per mile driven would be less with EVs than with ICE vehicles. The more electricity produced by renewable sources such as solar and wind, the smaller the amount of emissions. On ICE vehicles, when we add the emissions for finding and drilling the crude oil, transporting it to refineries, refining it, transporting it to gas stations, pumping it to the storage tanks and even using electric pumps to pump it into cars, we start to get a better picture of the total emissions of oil-based energy sources.
 

Cheaper to own and use

The high efficiency of the EV drive train means that electricity costs for driving your EV are about half of what you would pay for gas for even for the most efficient ICE car. The simplicity of the EV drive train means that maintenance costs are also reduced drastically. Even the brake system sees very little wear, because most of the energy needed to slow down is collected back to batteries by using the motor as a generator when the brake pedal is pressed. The new Lithium-ion battery packs found in most of the mass-manufactured EVs coming to market are expected to last 8-10 years. Even though these packs are fairly expensive now, the rapid development of battery technologies will make these packs much cheaper by the time they need to be replaced.
 

Why pure EVs might not work for you

If no one in your family commutes fewer than 40 miles per day, you should consider plug-in hybrid (PHEV) models like the Chevrolet Volt, the Toyota Prius Plug-in, or the Fisker Karma. Those will give you some pure EV driving range (12-40 miles), and then the ICE engine will provide the extended range you need. There also aren’t yet many bigger truck and van options available as EVs, but keep your eyes open for new models coming to the market in the future.
 

– Courtesy of Jukka Kukkonen, St. Paul, Minn. PlugInConnect.com
 

Let’s Complete Minnesota’s Streets

Expo’s ‘Complete Street in Action’ mimics Complete Streets concept

When you’re cruising along in your car, you probably don’t give a whole lot of thought to the streets in your city or town unless you hit a giant pothole. But what if you didn’t drive? Would you pay closer attention to your streets if you were a bus rider, bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user? What if you were a child walking to school or a parent pushing your baby stroller to the park? Too many of our streets were designed for speeding cars or traffic jams, creating unsafe conditions for those who aren’t behind the wheel. That’s where Complete Streets comes in.

“Complete Streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users,” says Jamez Smith with Transit for Livable Communities, a nonprofit organization working to reform Minnesota’s transportation system. “Complete Streets make it easy to cross the street, walk to shops, and bike to work. They allow buses to run on time and make it safe for people to walk to and from transit stations.”

Between 1999 and 2008, 417 pedestrians and 84 bicyclists were killed, and more than 10,000 pedestrians and more than 9,000 bicyclists were injured on Minnesota’s roads. Last year, through the hard work of a diverse, statewide Complete Streets coalition, the state of Minnesota passed a complete streets policy to ensure that roads are built safe and accessible for everyone who needs to use them—including pedestrians of all ages and abilities, bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and riders, and motorists.

According to Ethan Fawley, the transportation policy director with Fresh Energy, an organization promoting better energy and transportation systems, “Complete Streets is a common sense process that will see a more efficient use of taxpayers’ money by better responding to local needs, right-sizing roads, and reducing the need for costly future retrofits. In some cases, a ‘complete’ street might cost a little more than an unsafe street, but in other cases, using Complete Streets thinking can help save money by being more flexible with things like lane widths. Overall, Complete Streets thinking maximizes community benefits of roads at little or no additional overall costs.”

In addition to lower transportation costs, congestion relief, and creating more vibrant communities, Complete Streets promotes more walking and biking, which helps reduce oil dependence and air pollution.

New this year to the Expo is a working example of the Complete Streets philosophy, Complete Street in Action, in collaboration with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and partners Transit for Livable Communities, Alliance for Sustainability, Metro Transit, Fresh Energy, and 1000 Friends of Minnesota. The Complete Street in Action will run on Cosgrove Street between Dan Patch and Randall on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

According to event organizer Kristi Shepherd, the Expo has expanded to include more space on the Fairgrounds, and this was a fun and creative way to show people how a Complete Street works and what it looks like while facilitating movement of Expo attendees from one building to another.

Fawley hopes the experience will help people notice how well the street works for everyone, and start imagining how a bike lane or crosswalk can safely coexist with vehicle traffic in their own community.

“I hope that attendees find this interesting and innovative,” he comments. “There are a lot of smart engineers who have come up with great ways to make streets work better—Complete Street in Action will show off some of those ideas.”

For more information about Complete Streets, visit www.tlcminnesota.org or www.mncompletestreets.org.

Living Green Expo Exhibitors